Land+Rush

Land Rush
Janice Wilhelm jwilhelm1120@yahoo.com



Instructional Objective
What will the learners learn from this game (or more likely, what learning objectives are being reinforced by this game)? If it's for school use, where does it fit into the curriculum? (You can find links to curricular frameworks [|here] ).

Learners & Context of Use
Who is the game designed for? Describe them in terms of their age, grade level, affinity towards the subject matter, and anything special about them that the reader should know. Where would the game be used? If in a school, what accomodations would you need to make to do it in a typical classroom? Is it designed to be played more than once? What would happen prior to the game? What would happen after it? The game is designed for children from 5th grade level through high school. It could be used in conjunction with social studies classes about expansion west in the US.

Competing Products
What's out there that covers the same content as this game? How is your game similar to others? How is it different and better? (You can check the [|Board Game Geek] search engine and the [|Educational Learning Games catalog] for school-oriented titles.

**Object of the Game**
Simulating pioneers in the nineteenth century, players strive to gain ownership of a 160-acre piece of farm land in the western United States. Each player has “five years” (five times around the board) to find a piece of land, to build a cabin on it, and to improve the land during that time so that ultimately the player gains a title to the land. The rules are consistent with the Homestead Act of 1862.

Content Analysis
What are the elements of this content? Breaking it down will help you to think about possible game elements to include. Create a link from this point in the document to a separate new page created with the Board Game Content Analysis template.

Game Materials
List each of the physical objects one would find in the box. For example, the board, each type of card, each type of prize or token, etc.) After listing the materials, describe each in as much detail as needed. Include illustrations of the board and each type of card.
 * A board
 * Pawns/cards to represent the player/homesteader
 * A stack of chance cards to represent different chance events
 * A stack of information cards to represent different pieces of information drawn from real historical events
 * Cards/pieces to represent items such as crops, orchards, wells, cabins, money, etc.
 * One die.

Time Required
The game should take about 15 minutes to set up, once all the pieces and cards are cut and assembled. Play should take about an hour, and players can play again if they so choose.

The Rules

 * 1) The simplified version of the game is for 2-4 players.
 * 2) At the beginning of the game, each player stakes a claim to a 160-acre piece of land. This claim is represented by a homestead tile. Players keep this tile before them as they play and place the item cards on it as they are received. The goal is for players to improve their land over a five-year period by living in a cabin, planting crops, and making other improvements such as drilling a well or planting an orchard.
 * 3) Setup: Event cards and Chance Cards are shuffled and placed on their respective stacks face down on the playing board. Item and money cards are retained in the “bank” by the banker. One player is designated as the “banker,” who distributes item cards (crops, homestead cabins, etc.) based on game activities.
 * 4) Die is cast by each player to determine who goes first (highest number). Play continues in a counter-clockwise fashion starting with player who goes first, and each in turn rolls the die to determine how many spaces are moved.
 * 5) Each time the player passes the Home space, he receives a one-year counter and $10 from the banker.
 * 6) Play continues until a player manages to finally win a title to his/her land. This is accomplished by accumulating 5 one-year counters (that is, passing Home 5 times), and at that point the player must also have a cabin and required “improvement” items on the homestead. If the player doesn’t have these items, play continues until one of the players achieves these goals.
 * 7) Required improvements include at least one crop or orchard plus a well. Players can have only one cabin on their homestead at any one time, but can have multiples of other items, such as orchards or wells.
 * 8) Player can land on an information space, a chance or event space, or a blank space.
 * 9) For information spaces a card is drawn by the player who reads the card to the other players. Information cards contain information about the Homestead Act and general information and statistics about the era, such as interesting detail and pictures about what happened to settlers during the period. Some of the information may become useful later in the game.
 * 10) There are two special spaces: Home and the Train ride . Home is the start and end point. Each time home is passed, the player is given $10 and a year token. If a player lands on the train ride (the Transcontinental Railroad was functioning after 1869 along many settlement areas), he/she can take a short cut to the Home space, where the player will collect $10 and the year token.
 * 11) Chance spaces: The player selects a card from the top of the event stack. Events can include good chances and possibly some setbacks, such as: “You sink a well on your land and find water!” (Player gets a well item card) or “A plague of locusts eliminates your crop of wheat. Forfeit one crop.” (Player forfeits a crop card, if he has one). Events lead to either increasing or decreasing the player’s stock of items or “improvements.” After the event, the event card is placed upside down on the bottom of the deck.
 * 12) If a player is asked to forfeit an item via a chance card, he must give up the item to the bank. If he doesn’t have the item, he forfeits nothing.
 * 13) Players can also barter and trade items with other players and sell items for money when it is their turn (but only if the other player wants to make the trade or sale).
 * 14) After circling the board at least once and getting at least one year counter, if a player accumulates $200 he/she can purchase 5 one-year counters and end the game early (as long as he also holds the required cabin and improvements on his land). The Homestead Act allowed people to pay $1.25 per acre for 160 acres in order to get to get a deed to their land earlier (only six months instead of five years).

Motivational Issues
Describe how the game engages the learner. How does it make use of curiosity, challenge, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, etc.? (No one game will do all of these things, so focus on the particular strengths of this particular game.) Make specific reference to the theoretical readings associated with this course.

Design Process
Describe the process you went through in putting the game together. What were your first thoughts? How did you enhance your ideas? What ideas did you consider and reject (and why?). How did you gather background information? What did you do to see if there are similar games out there? What did you do to get feedback on the idea? How did you flesh out the game to the point of having a playable prototype? How did you gather feedback from that? What lessons did you learn from this that you'll carry to your next game design project?